Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Murdoch, Cameron and the corporate state - time to find a lamp-post

A previous plutocrat (and media baron), Tiny Rowland, was described by Ted Heath as the "unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism". This does set the stakes extremely high for Rupert Murdoch, whose murkiness and tentacles are sufficient only to be actively defended by Jonathan Raab (MP, God knows how) and Nicholas Soames, and passively supported by the idiot Cameron - doubtless a result of the financial and political support that the tainted Ameraustralian has given to the Tories over the decades. Watching this unravel is both frustrating and fascinating - if only because Cleggy's machismo appears to be confined to asking what the public enquiry should be looking at.

The real issue remains, as it has done, one of the liberty of the subject. Just because Murdoch runs a malicious multi-national company cannot mean that he is beyond the grip of the law. At last, what those of us who have been following his insidious stifling of free speech and freedom of expression for the last three decades (since the takeover and emasculation of Times Newspapers in 1981) are now joining forces with those with primal revulsion at the sanctioning of intrusions into the lives of those bereaved through criminal acts, be they those of lone lunatics, terrorists or victims of state-sponsored wars of aggression.

What Cameron and his cronies will be praying for, post-Coulson, is that there a few scapegoats that can be sacrificed and they can get on with selling out diversity, impartiality and competition in the interests of News Corp. Putting the rhyming-slang Jeremy Hunt in charge of the media demonstrates their hatred of the freedoms they claim to support - even if the Evil Empire's attempts to take over the whole of Sky are thwarted - and the extent to which the Tories are clients of a multinational, unaccountable behemoth with the moral sense of King Herod at a children's party.

Individuals convicted of criminal offences are liable to the confiscation of their assets in the interests of the state, thanks (in some measure) to the screaming advocacty of the Dirty Digger's tabloid toilet paper. The time is right for this to apply to shareholders who have connived with illegal, immoral and sick practices in the interests of short-term profit and the infallibility of the hypocritical, self-appointed tribune who thinks he has the right to bring down governments and for whose say-so My Little Tony prostitituted the whole of the Labour Party's moral integrity. Perhaps the best penalty for Murdoch would be a ban on his companies operating in the UK, and for the nationalisation of UK shareholdings without compensation. Murdoch hides behind a public corporation - let the stock-holders face the consequence through declining share prices, and the forfeit of their gambling stakes.

The Tories will continue to contain the damage, as the contagious pustules defile their entire party and makes their Blair-lite makeover look even more tenuous. Harnessing rage about Murdoch is one way in which the status quo can be challenged - with moral outrage and with single purpose. The lesson we should all learn is that governments are sovereign, and when corporations start to dictate to them they should be abolished. The last attempt at a self-described corporate state was Mussolini - and although the sight of Cameron and Hunt hanging from a lamp-post would be temporarily cheering it is not an answer to unravelling the evil that is in our midst and fed to millions daily.